Category: Commerce

Products, services, marketing, names

Not sure what’s up with the basureros

basura: trash
basureros: them wot spozed to quitar the basura

Overflowing trash containers, days before tourist season starts, Atlántida, Uruguay
The day before tourist season officially starts, it appears the basureros have decided not to work.
Overflowing trash containers, days before tourist season starts, Atlántida, Uruguay
When they resume, will they pick up all the overflow? Curiously, along the Rambla (beachfront road), the containers have been emptied. The two closest to us were burned to the ground (one for the third time) about a month ago. When I called the Intendencia to inquire, they explained that they were waiting for new, equally flammable (OK, they didn’t say that) containers, so at present had no replacements.

Overflowing trash bins on beach the day before tourist season starts, Atlántida, Uruguay
Meanwhile, the usually-diligent beach crew seems to have slacked off as well.

In case you’re curious, the breed of that hunkering creature in the background—who has gone from 10 kg to over 20 kg in less than two months—has finally been established. It’s a rare Oriental Spinkle-Faced Sand Hound.

More about the funky, UV-prone, flammable trash containers:

 

 

New passport, tires, and maybe blender

OK, nothing unusual about this. I went to the US spy center in Montevideo to renew my exceptional blue travel document for ten years: 10 minutes and 110 dollars. Concluded with a stop at an obscure repair place in an obscure part of Montevideo to see about fixing a Kassel blender, used gift from Syd and Gundy, that I managed to burn out (trying to process egg shells as a garden supplement).

Tire shop in Montevideo, Uruguay

In between, about an hour finding the tire place, negotiating one-way streets, and getting new tires for USD 59 each, balanced and installed (175/70/R14). In our local shop, they’d be around USD 85 each. Nothing exceptional about this, except that I’m obviously taking pictures inside the shop: anathema to OSHA and all the safety-nanny-priests of the Great North.

If I’m stupid enough to go to the car jack, release it with my leg underneath to be crushed by the weight of the vehicle, well, then, by golly, maybe I have learned anew about cause and effect. Don’t tell OSHA that people tend not to be so stupid.

Or maybe, in “Murka,” coached by their lawyers, they do.

As it is, I move myself out of the traffic patterns of the guys doing the work, and watch with interest.

It works.

 

 

Meet Luis, Señor increible

The bearings on my 6-year old wheelbarrow broke. You can’t replace them. You can’t buy a replacement wheel with the same size axle.

A South African guy named Geoff told me about buying a replacement wheel, then taking it to this guy who fabricated an axle to make it work on his wheelbarrow. So I went to buy the wheel, then after some discussion with the muchacho at the ferreteria (hardware store), decided it might be prudent to discuss it with Mr. Fixit, Luis, before purchasing it.

Luis said he could make a solution out of plastic that would solve the problem for a long time. Come back at the end of the day. So I did, to find custom-fabricated plastic bearings (they would be a T in cross-section, with perfectly fitting rubber grommets.

“Put a little grease on it when you put it back together,” he said, “and you’ll have no problem.”

luis
“You should see what I can do when I get serious about this shit.”

And the cost? 200 pesos, around $7 US.

 

 

Yes, this is my 3rd post about plastic ice trays in Uruguay

I must admit, my first post from two years ago now strikes me as sort of silly, because the nesting ice trays design now seems quite clever rather than flawed.

And perhaps my second post, almost a year ago, struck some people* as somewhat silly, when I considered it a miracle to find ice trays that worked and didn’t break. (FWIW, I kinda still do.)

Orange plastic ice tray in Uruguay - that has lasted a year!

Well, here you go, muchachos, the orange plastic ice trays from Disco in Carrasco (Montevideo), almost a year later, still releasing ice cleanly (85% of the time) and not breaking.

  • not mentioning names, mm-k?

 

A certain lack of [something]

At some point, we realized that the Disco “Hypermercado” gives a 10% discount for ten bottles of wine. In general, Disco has little to recommend it beyond perhaps-lower prices than Tienda Inglesa. But for a deal on wine, it’s fine. Unlike Tienda Inglesa — which has thicker bags — the cashiers at Disco put three, not two, bottles of wine in each thinner plastic shopping bag.

So what happens when you buy nothing but ten bottles of wine?

Three bottles in the first bag. Three bottles in the second bag. Clearly what remains are four bottles. Two more bags. So — ?

Three bottles in the third bag. One bottle in the fourth bag.
disco-bagging

This is not an isolated incident.

Why would a cashier not put two bottles in the last two bags? What am I missing here?

 

 

The escribano’s handwriting

I was with an escribano (basically, a lawyer for two parties in agreement) getting paperwork done, and was so stunned with his handwriting that I took a picture when he was out of the room:

notes

The first line: my address
Second: townThird: marital status
Fourth: wife’s name – that might be a question mark because I’m not sure what my wife’s proper name is in Uruguay, and I hesitated. She got one from migración, a different one from the Corte Electoral when we became citizens.

Amazingly, it was all correct when he produced the finished document.

 

And we’re not in it

For the first time in six years, I have phone books. For the entire country, outside of Montevideo, maybe 1.5 million people. (Half the population lives in Montevideo.)

phonebook

I was returning my shopping cart outside Disco, a most un-Uruguayan thing to do, and a guy with a small pile of phone books asked if I wanted one. Asked my cédula (ID) number, started talking to someone on his cell phone to verify, then hand-wrote my name on a sheet of paper.

First thing, of course: check to see if we’re in it. We’re not. Did we opt out long ago? Wouldn’t surprise me.